Danes

This article is about Danes as an ethnic group. For information about residents or nationals of Denmark, see demographics of Denmark. For other uses, see Dane.

Danes (Danskere)
H. C. Andersen • Niels Bohr • H. C. Ørsted • Sweyn Forkbeard Peter Schmeichel • Søren Kierkegaard • Tycho Brahe • Karen Blixen
Total population
c. 7 million
Regions with significant populations
Denmark 4,963,806  United States 1,430,897 The 2000 American census reports that the United States, in the 2000 census, has 1,430,897 inhabitants of Danish ancestry.  Canada 170,780 (List of Canadians by ethnicity, 2001 figure)  Brazil 140,000  Australia 100,000 The ABS estimates in a 2003 study that there are between 50,000 and 150,000 people claiming Danish ancestry living in Australia. The middle number has been used, and no change since 03 has been assumed.  Germany 50,000 National minorities at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany  Sweden 42,602 Statistics Sweden  Spain 8,944 Spanish National Statistics Institute  Greenland 6,500 The CIA World Factbook reports that Greenland, in a July 2005 estimate, has 56,375 inhabitants. The share of Danes was in 2000 estimated to be just below 12%. Taking for granted that the two ethnic groups have developed equally from 2000 to 2005, this adds up to an estimate just below 6765 Danish people in July 2005.  New Zealand 3,507 Statistics New Zealand  Iceland 2,802 Population by country of birth 1981-2006 by country and year: Denmark, 2006. Statistics Iceland (English version) (31 December, 2006). Retrieved on 2008-03-06.  Ireland 809 CSO Ireland - 2006 Census
Language(s)
Danish
Religion(s)
Predominantly Lutheran; small minorities of other faiths; secular.
Related ethnic groups
Norwegians, Swedes, Germans, Icelanders, Faroese and, to a lesser extent, English and all Germanic ethnic groups

The term Dane may refer to:

• People with a Danish ancestral or ethnic identity, whether living in Denmark, emigrants, or the descendants of emigrants.
• Members of the Danish ethnic minority in Southern Schleswig, a former Danish province.
• Anyone whose mother tongue is Danish.
• Nationals or citizens of Denmark, which also includes a German minority in South Jutland.

Origins

The current Danes are descended from an ancient North Germanic tribe originating and residing on the Danish islands, the ancient Dana, Dani or Danu. Several other ethnic components exist in what is today the kingdom of Denmark. The modern peoples of Jutland descend from the Jutes from Jutland, and their proto-Jutish ancestral tribes, including the Cimbri, who resided in Jutland and the Frisian coast, and the Ambrones, and up to 6 other Cimbric tribes. The Dani were not mentioned by Tacitus, whose famous work Germania mentions the Gothones (Geats and/or Goths?) that are theorized to be the same people as the Jutes, and the Suiones (Swedes). They seem to be, however, mentioned by Jordanes and Procopius, as the Dani. The name Daner is the etymological root of Dane. Jordanes maintains that the Dani were of the same stock as the Suetidi (Swedes, Suithiod?) and expelled the Heruli and took their lands. If Tacitus simply did not overlook the Dani, and if Jordanes\'s information was correct, it is possible that they first appeared, as an off-shoot of the Swedes, sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.^{[citation needed]} The Chronicle of Lejre states that a ruler of Zealand with name Dan had raised an army and saved his people from an invasion by the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar, that the Jutes, the men of Funen and the Scanian Provinces also accepted him as king, whence the resultant expanded country of Denmark and Danes was named after him. Dan as one or more ancient kings of the Danes are also written in other Nordic sagas.

Danes in Denmark

See also: History of Denmark

Almost five million ethnic Danes live in Denmark today. A minority of approx. 50,000 Danes live in Southern Schleswig in Germany, a former Danish territory, forming around 10% of the local population. In Denmark, the latter group is often referred to as De danske syd for grænsen (literally: the Danes south of the (Danish-German) border or sydslesvigere (South Schleswigers).

The Danish Nation in a political context

Det danske folk (The Danish people) as a concept, played an important role in 19th century ethnic nationalism and refers to self-identification rather than a legal status. Use of the term is most often restricted to a historical context; the historic German-Danish struggle regarding the status of the Duchy of Schleswig vis-à-vis a Danish nation-state. It describes people of Danish nationality, both in Denmark and elsewhere. Most importantly, ethnic Danes in both Denmark proper and the former Danish Duchy of Schleswig. Excluded from this definition are people from the formerly Norwegian Faroe Islands and Greenland as well as members of the German minority as well as members of other ethnic minorities.

The term should not be confused with the legal concept of nationality, danske statsborgere (Danish nationals) i.e. individuals holding Danish citizenship.

See also

• List of Danes
• Danish Americans

References

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia